Notes of a Future Pope

Robert P. Imbelli March 26, 2013 - 7:12pm

The Archbishop of Havana, cum permissu superiorum, has published notes of the talk given by then Cardinal Bergoglio during the pre-Conclave meetings of the Cardinals. Here are two of ths points he made:

When the Church is self-referent without realizing it, she believes she has her own light. She ceases to be the mysterium lunae and gives way to that very great evil which is spiritual worldliness (according to De Lubac, it is the worst evil that can come upon the Church). The self-referent Church lives to give glory only to one another. In simple terms, there are two images of the Church: the evangelizing Church that comes out of herself; the Dei Verbum religiose audiens et fidente proclamans,and the worldly Church that lives within herself, of herself, for herself. This must give light to the possible changes and reforms which must be made for the salvation of souls.Thinking of the next Pope, he must be a man that from the contemplation and adoration of Jesus Christ, helps the Church to come out to the existential peripheries, that helps her to be the fruitful mother who lives from the sweet and comforting joy of evangelizing.

The rest is here[1].Update:Here is part of L'Osservatore Romano's summary[2] of Francis' General Audience today:

God did not wait for us to approach him. Rather, it was he who moved toward us, without calculation or quantification. Hence the invitation to rediscover Holy Week as an opportunity to learn once again to follow, to accompany Christ. Even if this demands that we first come out of ourselves, come out of a dreary way of living faith that has become a habit, he warned. To come out of the temptation to close ourselves into our own plans, which ends by closing our horizons to God's creative action. We should therefore continue to follow the Lord with courage, carrying within us a ray of his love to all those we meet: this is what living Holy Week means."